Thursday, September 23, 2010

Very Close Friends

This was one of my favorite toylines when I was kid.I wish I could find one of the cool commercials they had for these ramp walkers in the 1960s.Toylines used to combine characters from different studios and put them all together in one commercial.So you had all these buddies for different cartoon studios all walking down a plank.So you would see Donald and Mickey cuddling up in single file behind spooning Fred and Barney behind snuggling Woody and Walrus. The commercial alone would make your head explode with excitement.It forced me to want every one of these romantic couples for my own loose planks.

I guess they even made generic characters but I don't remember them.I looked down my nose at any toys that weren't based on real cartoon characters. I thought it was cheating. I apply the same rule to coloring books.

I never saw those toys until they were on--what?--Boomerang ads? And then I thought they were something put together in the studio. I don't recall seeing them marketed in my neck of the woods when I was a kid.

Yeah, I can see why people would think that's a guy with that goose. But that "guy" is supposed to be Mother Goose... our family had a Mother Goose storybook when I was a kidlet, and the cover painting had her dressed very much like that, hat and all. But that's supposed to be an old lady.

Come on - who doesn't want a man to colour? Especially a man who has apparently kidnapped a very hairy baby Lion-o thundercat.

Hey, i know you don't like anything less than 50 years' old :) so how about classic painters? Do you like or study any? Today i've been looking at El Greco, who strikes me as a forward-thinking caricaturist with some broad relevance to cartooning: